Columns

By Congressman Robert Hurt
As I travel the Fifth District listening to those I represent, it is clear to me that Virginians recognize that the status quo is unsustainable. Our nation has borrowed $18 trillion, and Washington continues to borrow nearly 20 cents on every dollar it spends. Parents are gravely concerned about the impact of our national debt on their children’s futures.

I was happy to participate in the 2015 “Lobby Day” events at the General Assembly in Richmond recently.
My union, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 400, sent a team of us to attend the Virginia AFL-CIO’s Legislative Conference, primarily to lobby on behalf of an increase in the minimum wage.
We began on Sunday evening with a plenary session at the Richmond Marriott Inn, where we heard from several “friends of labor.”

We wrapped up our third week of session and I’m happy to report that things are quickly moving forward. We have made significant progress on the thousands of bills and resolutions that come before us, and we’ve had a lot of interesting discussion and testimonies in my committees.

Hard as it may be to believe, we are already over one-third of the way through the 2015 General Assembly session. The deadline on bills came at the end of last week, and this year’s session will consider over 2,100 bills and over 400 resolutions. That means the General Assembly will have to process an average of 55 bills every day we’re in session.

“There are no distressed buildings downtown.”
This was Councilman Steve Rush’s response to a question put to candidates for town council concerning what the town was doing to address the large number of distressed buildings downtown. I get it.

Many Americans don’t think of human trafficking as a problem in our country. The sale of children for sex sounds like something that could only happen in faraway places, but tragically it is happening right here in the United States every single day. Virginia is no exception. According to the FBI, sex trafficking is the fastest-growing business of organized crime and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world. Sadly, this immoral and criminal industry is also a profitable one. It’s estimated that child sex trafficking in the United States alone is a $9.8 billion industry.

It’s budget time again and all our local governing bodies are about to begin wrestling with the budget bear. It can be a tough time because they often have to begin working before they know what the General Assembly is going to do to them.

It’s always a pleasure to watch and listen to this particular president give a major speech or formal address.
Barack Obama’s soaring rhetorical abilities can’t be matched by anyone else in politics today. His ability to speak reflects what even his critics know to be his deep intellect.